The History of Us
by Alecto Perdita
Summary: It seems as if Anzu and Yuugi have always been together. But it's only after Atem leaves that they finally learn to be *together*.


Written for Reishiin as part of Rare Pair Fest 2015. Thanks to darkmus and M for beta'ing.

* * *

On the way home from Egypt, Anzu and Yuugi sat next to each other on the plane— their elbows bumping every time they hit a patch of turbulence. At some point during the flight, their fingers laced together to offer what comfort they could to each other. But her heart remained heavy and packed away in her bags alongside the second cartouche pendant purchased at the airport. Even later in the privacy of her own room, she didn't dare to pull the pendant and chain over her head.

The rest of summer passed in a humid haze of endings blurred into new beginnings.

Everyone seemed to expect the two of them to get together after Atem's departure. It came in a variety of forms, from Jounouchi's suggestive looks to Otogi's pretend-casual insinuations to Bakura's poor attempts to initiate heart-to-heart conversations. When no such thing happened, Anzu kept a lid on her simmering temper as Jounouchi laid the bulk of the blame at her feet. Atem is gone, stop pining, he'd say with everything but words.

Jounouchi seemed to neglect the fact that Yuugi mourned too.

Grief would have made it easy— too easy. Deep down, Anzu had always known that Yuugi had a crush on her. In the right lighting when the shadows were long, Yuugi could pass for Atem. She would be lying if she said she was never tempted.

-x-x-x-

The thing that nobody told you about New York City was that the grit was as much a part of the city as the glamor. Domino seemed quaint by comparison. Under the glistening metropolis laid a crumbling infrastructure straining to support over 8.5 million people. The F train was never on time, which was the case today as Anzu stumbled onto the overcrowded platform. And you didn't get the necessary 4G or cellular access to notify someone that you were running late.

New York City wasn't perfect, but Anzu loved it nonetheless.

She made it to Madison Square Garden with less than ten minutes to spare. The Garden was packed, even more so than the last time she was there for a Knicks game with classmates. Duel Monsters was big business these days, and there was no bigger dueling event in the US than the American Championship. This year's competition opened with a very special exhibition match.

The lights dimmed and the crowd roared as the Industrial Illusions and Kaiba Corporation logos flashed across the jumbotrons. From one end, Kaiba Seto emerged to thundering applause. The sound became downright deafening when Yuugi stepped onto the stage opposite him. Anzu's chest ached, overflowing with homesickness and something tender. It had been nearly a year since she saw her friend this up close. They kept in touch when they could, but they were busy people— she with her dance study at NYU and he with the Game Shop and his professional dueling career.

Her front row seat, courtesy of Yuugi, put her close enough that she could leap the stage and hug him. But Yuugi was there to work, and Kaiba never appreciated any interruptions to his precious dueling. Instead, she sat on her hands and did her best to take in every detail that her newfound proximity afforded her. Yuugi still looked like the Yuugi she said goodbye to in Japan. He hadn't grown taller, and while his eyes were not physically sharper, there was a light in them that she could not put a name to.

He waved furtively to her as he slipped his shuffled deck into his Duel Disk.

Kaiba's Blue Eyes were a familiar sight. When they gave their battle cry, Anzu remembered danger, the dry desert wind running through her hair, and a whiff of myrrh and cinnamon. She half-expected the Dark Magician to pop out of a magical hat and wag his finger in a playful challenge as he often did when Atem dueled.

But Yuugi's Silent Magician and Silent Swordsman made her heart race in a brand new way.

-x-x-x-

They ended up at the Met the next day because Yuugi asked to see her favorite spots in the city. Anzu liked the Met for any number of reasons: it was inexpensive to frequent, had a great collection of classic sculptures, and was home to the Costume Institute.

Then there was the Temple of Dendur. It was especially ethereal looking on days like today when the sun's rays filtered in through the slanted glass wall like a natural spotlight illuminating the structure.

Anzu never had much affinity for Egyptian art before Yuugi put together the Millennium Puzzle. But when her doubts and homesickness started to crowd out her usual confidence, she would come here. At first, she thought about Atem and how he never gave up— she wouldn't either. As time passed though, her interests shifted to her fellow visitors and imagining the adversaries they might overcome in their daily lives.

"It's amazing that you have something like this so close to you!" Yuugi marveled. He reached one hand toward a stone wall, but stopped short of touching it before shuffling back. Then smiling ruefully, he added, "The Domino Museum closed the exhibit for the Pharaoh's memory tablet several months ago."

Anzu kept her arms fixed at her side, beating back the urge to touch the blank cartouche hanging inside her blouse. She couldn't pinpoint when or why she started wearing the necklace after moving to the city. But right now, it was a guilty weight around her neck. She bit her lower lip and said, "I'm sorry, Yuugi. I didn't mean to dredge up bad memories for you."

"My memories of Atem-kun are never bad, even if bad things happened at the time. Every one of them is precious and irreplaceable. Wouldn't you say so, Anzu?" Yuugi's eyes glowed with the reflected light filtered through the sun-kissed canopy of nearby park trees. The sadness from Atem's departure had not faded yet— might never completely fade, but each of them had been moving on as best as they could.

For dinner, she took him to a ramen shop on St. Mark's. After they were seated, she apologized again for her poor choice— Yuugi didn't fly almost 10,000 kilometers to eat the same thing he could find in Domino.

Yuugi laughed, eyes crinkling in the corners. "There's nothing wrong with looking for pieces of home wherever we might go."

-x-x-x-

Autumn came early to New York that year. Three weeks into the new school year, the leaves were already starting to change colors. By then, she was knee-deep in her studies, with little room to breathe between the end of the summer dance residency and the start of her second-year courses. The early chill made October especially trying. Anzu broke her heavy winter coats out of storage, bundling herself in their warmth as she hurried from morning technique classes to evening rehearsals.

There were days when she wanted nothing more than to stay in bed though. Yuugi's messages helped her through those days.

In the end, her hard-work paid off when she and a few other classmates were tapped to help out with the Second Avenue Company's performance for the semester. As she filed out onto the stage behind the third-years, a flash of gold and purple briefly threw her off. There was no way Yuugi was in the audience— not when he just wished her luck over the phone several minutes ago. She shook her head and concentrated on the rhythm of her steps instead.

Finding Yuugi waiting by the stage door afterwards was almost as exhilarating as the audience's applause.

He presented her with a bouquet of carnations and his usual adorable smile. "Congratulations on your performance, Anzu."

Careful not to crush the flowers, she threw her arms around him and squeezed as if her life depended on it. A moment later, she realized that Yuugi's height left him smothered against the neck of her thick winter coat. He took a visibly deep breath after she released him— ears tinged pink along their rims.

Then she slugged him not so gently on the shoulder and scolded, "Why didn't you tell me you were coming?!"

"I wanted it to be a surprise. Besides, I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it until yesterday. Kaiba-kun can be a slave-driver."

Ever since Yuugi accepted Kaiba's sponsorship deal, he had been flying over the world to participate in the many competing pro-leagues springing up like weeds. She fought a silly grin— never in their high school years would she have imagined that Yuugi would become her jetsetting duelist best friend.

Threading her arm through his, she pulled him to her side. "I'll forgive you this time, but you're not going anywhere else until we have a cup of coffee."

He laid one hand over hers gripping the inside of his elbow and inclined his head politely. "Lead the way then."

-x-x-x-

Juggling the disintegrating muffin in one hand, she texted Yuugi the photo of a coffee cup bearing some barista's creative interpretation of her name: Antzoo. Someone would get it right one day.

Maybe.

She wasn't holding her breath though. She still wasn't used to the unnatural emphasis that most Americans placed on the first syllable of her name.

"Texting your boyfriend again?" her roommate Emily asked as she flipped through that month's issue of Marie Claire. She deftly circled the photo of a Kate Spade bag that Anzu had also been coveting for weeks.

"I already told you, Yuugi's not my boyfriend," Anzu protested after hitting send and tossing her phone onto the coffee table.

Without looking up from the magazine, Emily countered, "You guys talk more than Ashley and Kevin, and they live in the same city."

Emily wasn't wrong. She and Yuugi managed hour-long chats about once every two weeks, but more often than not, they messaged each other throughout the day. Between her class/rehearsal schedule, his burgeoning pro-dueling career, and the time difference, the phone conversations could get a bit tricky to schedule.

Her roommate continued, "And he's always visiting you. I still haven't met any of your other besties from back home."

Anzu rolled her eyes and reached up to grasp the cartouche pendant. She enjoyed the sensation of the cool silver sliding over her fingertips. "That's because Yuugi has corporate sponsorship. You know how much flight and hotel costs in this city. And he's not here to play around. He travels here for work."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the American KaibaCorp headquarters out in San Francisco?" Emily gave a smug grin, as if she had already won the argument.

Anzu's phone buzzed, its screen lit by a message notification in Japanese. Dropping the pendant she had been toying with, she reached for her phone and said, "The Kaiba Corporation also has a branch here in New York."

Upon reading Yuugi's reply, she smiled and sank back into the sofa. Messages from Yuugi were like receiving little pieces of home.

-x-x-x-

On his third visit to the city, Anzu suggested that they step out of their comfort zone. Which was how they found themselves in the basement boiler room at P.S. 1, staring at steel flagstones in the ground. It was probably only her fifth time in Queens after so long in the city.

"Anzu, I don't think I get contemporary art," Yuugi muttered under his breath, brows furrowed in confusion and concentration.

Anzu was inclined to agree. She tilted her head to the side and tried to resolve the shapes into some meaningful configuration. She'd rank this installment somewhere between the Crayola Square they passed earlier and the room with a view of the sky on the third floor, but there was a lot of leeway between those two. Anzu rubbed her temples, trying to chase away the headache that was starting to develop. They should have gone to the MoMA instead. At least they would have seen something recognizable like Edvard Munch's _The Scream_ there.

"Let's go somewhere else," she suggested. "You still haven't been to the big Duel Monsters store in Time Square yet, have you?"

Yuugi looked conflicted though. His gaze bounced between her and the steel flagstones. "But you said you wanted to do something adult and sophisticated today."

"I rather have fun with you, Yuugi. And who says we can't be adult and sophisticated at the Duel Monsters store?" she placed both hands on her hips and mock-glared at him.

"Remember that you offered!" He laughed, took her hand, and dragged her toward the exit. They couldn't get on the 7 train fast enough to make their escape. She jammed her purse between the closing doors, forcing them to reopen long enough to pull Yuugi inside the car. They giggled and leaned against each other for support, fingers still twined.

-x-x-x-

Her ears burned when she caught the first whisper of Kaiba's name from nearby.

"Damn, he's hot. And he has all that money."

"You sound like a gold-digger."

Anzu peered over at the group of freshman girls squeezed around the next table in the dining hall. They were passing someone's pink-covered phone around. She rolled her eyes and fixed her gaze back to her book. It was true that Kaiba was kind of good-looking, but his personality left much to be desired. Girls like this would probably have a heart attack if they ever had to interact with Kaiba Seto in person.

Another girl spoke up, "He barely even plays anymore. I like the current champion more, Yuugi Mutou."

"Eh? Isn't he a bit short?"

"So what? He's cute! When he smiles, it's like the entire room just lights up. Seto Kaiba looks like he'd rather throw you off a building than shake your hand."

Anzu caught herself nodding in agreement. But without a doubt, Yuugi was a million times better.

Yuugi's apparent fan continued, "Yuugi looks just as cool as Seto Kaiba when he's dueling. I bet Yuugi's an absolute sweetie!"

Anzu's phone rang. It was a call from Yuugi. She mulled over the idea for a few seconds— a wicked devil perched on her shoulder, before answering in a voice slightly louder than necessary and in English, "Hey, Yuugi, how's California treating you?"

The next table went eerily still before all chaos broke loose.

"Did she just say Yuugi?"

"It's a coincidence! Coincidence!"

"Yeah, how many people do you know that are named Yuugi?"

Anzu tried to smother her giggles, but didn't succeed. She gathered her books and rose from her seat. She risked a glance back before hurrying away to escape some of the murderous glares being thrown her way. Switching back to Japanese, she teased, "Did you know you have fangirls, Yuugi?"

"Eh?" Yuugi screeched on the other end.

None of those girls knew what Yuugi looked like when he blushed though. Anzu had that honor all to herself.

-x-x-x-

Overnight, Anzu gained nearly three thousand new Twitter followers, more than a hundred Facebook friend requests, and someone hacked her barely used Instagram account. All because someone posted a photo of her and Yuugi having dinner at a Chelsea restaurant online. Now everyone and their mothers wanted to know what her relationship with Yuugi was. She had been photographed with Yuugi plenty of times before, so she didn't understand why this particular instance was blowing up.

She supposed there was something vaguely romantic about the restaurant they had picked. The lighting had been dim, and their faces were mostly illuminated by the electronic candle between them. From the picture's angle, it looked like they were holding hands, but Anzu distinctly remembered she was passing her phone over to show him something.

Not to mention, she and Yuugi holding hands shouldn't be considered some kind of anomaly.

Someone knocked on the bedroom door. It was Emily. "Your boyfriend's here to see you."

"Not my boyfriend," she replied on automatic.

"Not what they're saying online," Emily fired back and snickered.

Anzu glared at her roommate until she left and was replaced by a nervous looking Yuugi. "Come in," she gestured and patted the spot next to her on the bed. She flipped her laptop around to show him the Twitter website. "We're trending."

Yuugi winced. "I'm sorry I got you into this, Anzu. I'll have Tsuzuki-san issue a statement as soon as possible."

"Who?"

"Tsuzuki-san, my publicist."

She stared at him in shock. "Wait, you have a publicist now?"

"Kaiba-kun insisted I get one."

Anzu considered the photo again. Some people were declaring themselves as "Yuuzu" fans and gushing over what a cute couple they made. See how they're gazing at each other, they said, look at how happy they are. There was something heart-wrenching about the way they smiled at each other in the photo.

"I don't think this is the sort of thing you can put back in the box after the fact," she whispered, her heart slowly clawing its way up her throat.

"But the things that they're saying about you online— If I wasn't Duel King, they wouldn't be saying those things about you. Maybe I shouldn't visit as often." He ran a hand through his wild hair and his frustration drew creases across his browline. She wanted to soothe the wrinkles away.

She wouldn't lie— some of the vitriol being directed at her hurt. For one, she didn't understand how she was simultaneously too thin and too fat. But the thought of not seeing Yuugi hurt more.

"Let them talk. What's important is we know what we are to each other."

Fear flashed across Yuugi's face, and she was sure she mirrored it. "What are we?" he asked.

Two and a half years in America and New York City had taught her two things: one, how to know what you want, and two, how to have the courage to pursue it.

"I think we should figure that out together." She leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips.

His answer came in a breathy exhale and an arm wrapped around her waist.

-x-x-x-

"Your boyfriend's here!" Emily called from the living room.

"Coming!" she shouted back and snatched up her clutch.

Halfway to the door, she remembered and doubled back to her desk. On top was the box she had picked up from the jewelers earlier that day. Heart racing, she pulled the necklace from its resting place inside the box. It took her three tries to thread the lobster clasp correctly, and the pendant rested low on her neckline. She smiled at her reflection in the full-length mirror, caressing the kanji characters for Yuugi now engraved in the center of the cartouche.

Here goes nothing.


End file.
